Pizza!

Jeff was craving pizza tonight, so I ran to the market to get soy cheese and a red bell pepper. I had black olives and tomato puree in the cabinet.

I made the crust with spelt flour. Spelt gives a different texture than traditional pizza crust, but I really like it. I didn't have time to go all out, so I used quick-rise yeast, and didn't really let the dough rise at all. When I'm in a hurry and want homemade pizza, I am perfectly content with doing it this way. I put some dried thyme in the dough, and thyme and oregano and minced garlic in the tomato sauce.

Here's Nutmeg doing quality control.

I roasted the pepper right over the gas burner on my stove. Deborah Madison turned me onto roasting peppers this way. I have so much fun doing this, because I feel a little adventurous and rebellious just plopping the pepper down without a skillet or nuthin'. It chars nicely, and you can hear it make sighing and squeaking noises as it roasts. Once it was nice and blackened I put it in a covered bowl so it could steam a bit and get a little softer. Then the blackened skin peeled right off, and it was chop chop and onto the pizza with crushed black olives. This is a picture of some sweet little baby peppers I roasted a couple of weeks ago.



I had some parsley in the refrigerator, so some of that went on there too, with a sprinkle of salt. Into the oven at 350 degrees and it was ready in about 15 minutes. I ate it with a simple salad of romaine and crushed walnuts with a vinaigrette. Nothing new and innovative here, but good good.

The Aftermath: Pepper and Parsley Carnage